Analyses of God beliefs, atheism, religion, faith, miracles, evidence for religious claims, evil and God, arguments for and against God, atheism, agnosticism, the role of religion in society, and related issues.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

For years, research projects have been producing results that seem to indicate that going to church is positively correlated with lots of good things. People who regularly attend seem to be happier, healthier, live longer, are less depressed, and so on. Non-believers, and those who don’t want to get out of bed on Sunday morning, have groused long and loud about those studies. Lots of atheists have pulled out the magnifying glasses and attacked the rigor of these studies with enthusiasm. Many of these efforts have appeared to me to be clear cases of putting their conclusion first and then forcing the evidence to fit it. Believing is bad, atheism is right, therefore, we will not accept that church going could be a good thing.

But the evidence in favor of the correlation seems to be there, and it’s been replicated in lots of studies. The great debate, of course, has been over what the cause of the correlation is. Does going to church cause these benefits? Or do happy, thoughtful, healthy, and long-lived people tend to go to church in greater numbers? Sloppy thinking believers, encouraged by these studies, want to treat the correlations as vindication of believing (“God is blessing us!”). And equally sloppy minded atheists have sputtered and pointed out that non-believers can get all of those benefits by gathering together, supporting each other, meditating, doing charity work, and so on. In short, if we can do all or most of the things that church people do, but without the actual believing part, then we’ll get all the same benefits.

McCullough and Willoughby draw five conclusions:1) Religiousness is positively related to self-control as well as agreeableness and conscientiousness.2) Religiousness achieves this influence through goal selection, goal pursuit, and goal management. Specific religions prescribe specific goals: Jews, Christians, and Muslims value positive social relationships and social harmony more, and individualistic and hedonistic pursuits less, than the non-religious.3) The evidence is mixed for the claim that religiousness promotes self-monitoring. More research is needed.4) Some religious rituals like meditation, prayer, religious imagery, and scripture reading promote self-regulation.5) Religion’s ability to promote self-control or self-regulation (avoid drugs, alcohol, pre-marital sex) can explain some of religion‘s associations with health, well-being, and social behavior. More research is needed.

They argue that a very special state of mind or set of cognitive practices need to be achieved. It’s not enough to just go through the motions, and it’s not enough to have a general spiritual idea like “my life is directed by a spiritual force greater than any human being.” Strongly religious people are more conscientious and have more self-control than these sorts of new-agey believers. “Thinking about the oneness of humanity and the unity of nature doesn’t seem to be related to self-control,” Dr. McCullough said. “The self-control effect seems to come from being engaged in religious institutions and behaviors.”

It also won’t be enough to go to church and fake it for selfish reasons: Tierney says, “because personality studies have identified a difference between true believers and others who attend services for extrinsic reasons, like wanting to impress people or make social connections. The intrinsically religious people have higher self-control, but the extrinsically religious do not.”

Cranky, and short-lived atheists will holler, “But, but these people are being well-behaved for the wrong reasons…they’re just being obedient because they’re afraid of God.”

But that’s not the case either, “Religious people, [McCullough] said, are self-controlled not simply because they fear God’s wrath, but because they’ve absorbed the ideals of their religion into their own system of values, and have thereby given their personal goals an aura of sacredness. He suggested that nonbelievers try a secular version of that strategy.”

Apparently, what the sexed-up, drunken, church-skipping atheist needs is exactly what they can’t have: a real belief in the sacred. One has to have it in your head not just that eating right and exercising is good for you, but that there is something magical, mystical, or transcendent and maybe objective like God in your ideas about pursuing those goals. It looks like to really get the positive effects, you’ve got to have it in your head that the values are inviolate. (Although it’s not clear to me how this endorsement of sacred-mindedness fits with McCullough’s denial that new-agey believers can get the benefits.)

So the non-believer who wants to score all the benefits needs to find a sacred-feeling way to substitute for all the praying, believing, and devotional-ing that the believers are doing. And that sacredness needs to be a very close analogue to what the believers are doing when they focus all that mental energy and ritualized practice on God. But if the non-believer wants to stay true to their convictions and what they think the evidence shows about God, they need to walk this fine line without actually believing in God.

I can’t see how to do that. I don’t see how one can really accept the obvious and rational conclusion that there’s no magic, no spiritual forces, and no gods AND simultaneously achieve the mental states and habits of the believers that are producing these benefits. Either the non-believer has got to make a choice about what’s more important to them—truth or benefits—or they’ve got to find a way to have their cake and eat it too. (But cut back on the booze.)

Pascal’s choice here, famously, was to “deaden my acuteness.” It looks like some sort of self-lobotomy is in order.

24 comments:

It looks like another study I will definitely need to look at. The thing I am wondering about is whether it is not the case that while the effect of religiosity at the individual level is positive, religion may have a negative effect at the societal level, particularly over the long term. A societal level effect seems to be suggested by the admittedly weak George Paul study and could be explained by interference with the development of modern social democratic institutions. If this was correct, it would lead to an interesting mismatch at the two levels.

You make a good point when you write, "The thing I am wondering about is whether it is not the case that while the effect of religiosity at the individual level is positive, religion may have a negative effect at the societal level, particularly over the long term."

McCullough and Willoughby consider this to be an important question for further research. In their recommendation they state, "Indeed, the evidence for religion's ability to motivateaggression (Bushman, Ridge, Das, Key, & Busath, 2007) andprejudice (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 2005) is at least as convincingas is the evidence for religion's ability to facilitate cooperation(Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007) and other forms of prosocial behavior(Saroglou, Pichon, Trompette, Verschueren, & Dernelle, 2005),especially when the religion is of a fundamentalist, authoritarianvariety (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 2005; Rowatt et al., 2006)."

I'm also not as pessimistic as Matt appears to be. In both articles meditation appears to be as effective as prayer. As a naturalist I can find no reason not to adopt a meditative regime if the data suggests it's beneficial. Also, in the Times article, it appears that having a belief in something "sacred", not necessarily divine, has an effect. And although McCullough and Willoughby don't address this particular element, their research did suggest that their findings had an applicability across cultural lines, leaving open the idea that one's notion of the sacred need not be confined to supernatural phenomena.

Now, I wish I would have kept those Zen meditation books I read when I was in school.

The absurb part of the claim is that scientists purport to know what characteristics are good or best for you. Contented cows are not well equipped to survive outside of protected pastures. It seems clear though that religions have helped people survive in the past. I just finished Atran "The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion". What we need is more of this type of scientific study and less ideologically motivated anecdotes on either side of the question.

It seems clear though that religions have helped people survive in the past.

It also seems clear that religions have contributed to people's demise in the past. Other than self-destructive cults like that of Jim Jones and David Koresh, we have sects that were persecuted by other sects. You don't have to go back any further than the Holocaust to come up with an example of people being killed for their religious affiliation.

I think the Nazi's went after the Jews primarily for percieved genetic/ethnic differences, rather than religous ones. I don't think you want to say the the Jewish religion caused the Holocaust, or that religions are dangerous because they might cause non-religious people to attack them. Otherwise Atran makes the same point, religious differences can cause or exacerbate conflicts between groups. The 4 year war in Gombe shows that chimpanzees are quite capable of splitting into rival groups and exterminating each other without any help from religion. So if group rivalry isn't caused by religion, atheism, or atheistic religions isn't likely to be a cure.

On the subject of happiness, other studies have shown that its genetic. Losing a leg, or winning a lottery will have a large short term effect but won't change the happiness baseline much in the long run. So maybe happier people on average, tend to go to church more, but that doesn't mean going to church is likely to make a particular person any happier. Some effective treatments (on average) are useless on some patients.

I apologize for missing your point. The opposite to the idea that a religion has helped those who hold it, is that it has harmed those who hold it. This is consistant with your Jonestown example. So when you brought up the holocaust I assumed you were talking about the Jewish religion, as the Jews were clearly the ones harmed.

I agree that a thousand years of anti-semitism contributed to Hitler's views, and bear some responsibility for the events. Was anti-semitism an integral part of some Christians' beliefs? Yes.

Is anti-semitism an essential feature of all Christian belief? I don't think so, but even if it is this does not mean that all religion is dangerous, evil etc. only that this specific one is.

The opposite to all religion is bad is not that all religion is good, but rather that some religion is not bad. As Atran says"religion" like "system of government" does not exist except in specific instances. So democracies are not bound to have the same faults as dictatorships, just because they are also "systems of government". Similarly one religion may or may not contain the excesses of another. Being able to classify something as a system of belief, or of governement doesn't do much unless you believe or have proved that all belief or all government is bad.

What is essential to western monotheistic religions is authority, obedience, and acceptance without doubt or questions. Truth is simply declared from on high and the religious are expected/commanded to accept, conform, believe and to overcome their skepticism. The fundamental approach to the world is: here is the one and only doctrine, accept it or be rejected, and anything else you encounter must be made to conform to it or it must be rejected too.

Contrast that to the scientific method where doubt, criticism, and skepticism are the virtues and the conclusions are drawn AFTER we have observed the world and they are only acceptable if they conform to what we discover.

The former is the path to intellectual stagnation, ignorance, danger, and slavery. The latter is the the path to intellectual virtue, enlightenment, freedom and hope.

I agree that classifying something in a category such as a religion or a system of government does not really say much about the characteristics of an individual entity, especially in comparision to others.

Personally, I believe that both the positive and the negative attributes of individual religions just demonstrate how religion as a whole has developed from human origins, as certain religions have acquired the negative or positive aspects of their followers, as certain people have manifested certain qualities through religion or have chosen to express certain characteristics through their religion.

If we can show how people had a hand in changing their religions for both better and worse, we can show how religion is ultimately more natural than supernatural.

Atran address most of your charges in "In Gods we Trust: The evolutionary landscape of religion" All quotes below are from section 10.10 Secular science and religion: Coexistance or a zero-sum game.

While many religions do make appeals to conform to a timeless doctrine or be rejected,the reality is that the doctrines and religions do change. "The world's religios panorama is a kaleidescope of forms that continously develop, split, merge, transform, decay, and reemerge in a relentless process of competitive agitation". "new religious movements ... arise at ... the rate of 2-3 per day [Lester 2002]".

If western monotheistic religion causes intellectual stagnation, than it is hard to account for the strength of the US in scientific endeavors or the emergence of western science.

Moral sentiments like your hopes for a better world, are not deducible from science.

This does not mean that one shouldn't try to rid the world of stupid religions. but "As long as people share hope beyond reason, religion will persevere" because "no other mode of thought and behaviour deals routinely and comprehensively with the moral and existential dilemmas that panhuman emotions and cognitions force on the human awareness"

Even the idea of supernatural agents arises naturally. "They are always held meta representationally" "never fully assimilated with factual and commonsensical beliefs"

I was saying that what he says religious people would have to 'do' on order to be doing what the God in question would want , is totally antithetical to biblical faith. Faith in Christ is not religion. Religion being that which men do to somehow ascend to the divine.

Aren't you ignoring the contingency that science could've strengthened in spite of this religious tendency? One could argue that Americans' (as an entire society) understanding of science is significantly behind other, more secular countries.

steve martin:

I'm sorry if I don't really understand the difference between "religious" Christianity and "non-religious" Christianity.

By the way, my pseudonym is "Player Piano", not "Piano Player". Thanks.

Religious Christians are under the false impression that something they do will bring them closer to God (accepting Jesus, making a serious committment to God, being obedient, doing good things, etc.)

Non religious Christians rely totally on what God has done for them through Christ Jesus. It's all about trust and that trust is not even something that the person musters up, but rather it is a gift of God through the hearing of the gospel (your sin is forgiven for Jesus sake). Nothing at all to do. And the word is...nothing.

You now know more about the Christian faith than 95% of Christians (for whatever that is worth to ya)

Re M.M. What is essential to western monotheistic religions is authority, obedience, and acceptance without doubt or questions

I could claim, ispe dixit, that what is essential to nationalism is blind loyalty to, and acceptance without doubt or question, the existing borders or leadership of a nation.

Of course there is no clear scientific answer to the question of where borders should be. And some views of where the borders should be cannot be reconciled with others.

While the above definition of nationalism may describe some instances (Deutzland uber alles), most would hold that nationalism can be more than just blind loyalty. It can mean a commitment to work together to improve and defend a nation, without being blind to its faults.

And religion can be more than just blind obedience to a dogma. The view of many scientists including anthropologist Scott Atran, is that religion is more about commitment to a set of moral sentiments, than it is about blind obedience.

Like borders, there is no clear scientific answer on moral sentiments. Should humans pair off for life, like some geese, or should a dominant male or female control the reproductive activities of the others. I know which one I prefer, but I can't really make a scientific argument that it is the best choice.

This doesn't mean we need to accept any moral sentiment as equally valid (Bikinis or Burkas)without argument. Like John Stuart Mill knew that you couldn’t prove that good things were good. But he also knew that questions not decidable by proof were still amenable to argument, and that he would rather have the side of the argument that suggested that health, prosperity, and pleasure were good things than the side that said they weren’t. From an Oct 8 2008 review in The NewYorker

Yes, religion has its advantages. I usually do want to scream at other atheists who pretend that it doesn't, because I feel they're just being dogmatic about it generally, which is stupid, because we're supposed to be the freethinkers.

Religion can be a committment to a collection of moral sentiments, but many religions have a flawed collection of moral sentiments.

My morality does not tell me that it's okay to condemn someone eternally for finite actions. My morality doesn't tell me that it's perfectly acceptable if I condemn two young, immature children to eternal scorn for a single offense.

Yes, by cherry-picking from various religious teachings, religion can exercise influence for the establishment of positive moral values. However, it would be of much more utility to hone one's own moral values through the combined moral wisdom of ALL religions. Belief in any one particular religion as "True" with a capital "T" often constrains moral development. Yes, I applaud the religious liberals and moderates who combine exterior sources of morality with their own religious beliefs to form a unique moral compass. However, people need to realize that once you do this, you are surrendering the argument that your religion is the "ultimate source of morality". Even if someone takes all of their morality from the Bible, if one only selects certain sections to adhere morally, one is still using an exterior standard and applying it to form their individual morality! Most Christians' morality is formed in more or less the same way that non-Christians form theirs.

That's the larger point, really: religious belief is largely unnecessary to the formation of morality. Yes, the social environments of religious communities often holp reinforce particular moral conventions. However, I believe that it is more productive to emphasize the diverse and deeply-seated origins of morality in human culture that are not strictly dependent on any one particular religion.

What's your Mill quote implying, anyway - that non-Christians' don't believe that morals are good things? That is an absurd and ridiculous straw-man. I believe in morality, but my morality is more broad-based than the claims of any ONE religion.

Many religious people claim that atheists and others emphasize morality less than they do, but I believe that morality is SO important that I shouldn't limit myself to any one particular SOURCE of morality. I recognize that our natural empathy, combined with our social conventions and standards, is the source of our morality.

It's deceptive to say that non-Christians are any less moral than Christians, or that any one religion is the exclusive source of morality. Yes, I know that we can't prove morality, but neither can religion, and my sense of morality is larger than the sense of morality within any one religion.

I have a firm conviction that there is so much more of everything - including morality -in our world than there is in any one particular form of religion.

What was I implying? Mostly I was troubled by MM's categorical statement about what is essential to certain religions, and what I believe is false dilemma of doubt vs. dogma (which he carries forward in his next post).

My point is not to defend every or all religious beliefs. Atran argues the from an anthropological perspective, religious beliefs can co-exist easily with factually information, but represent moral sentiments, or commitments to a specific moral framework.

The dilemma is how do we deal with conflicting moral sentiments, if we believe for example that women should be allowed to drive (unlike Saudi Arabia), and that all moral sentiments are unprovable sentiments.Dr McCormick argues we must reject all belief so that we use only the scientific method to determine what is right.

But morality (what is a good action) as you say, can't be proven, even by religion. This is analagous to Mill and the question of what is good, and why I quoted him. While morals can't be proven true, they can be checked for self-consitancy, and arguments can be brought to bear against them. Non-religious have moral sentiments as much a religious people do, and I'm troubled that my comment came across otherwise.

I can't find anything in what you said that I disagree with. My point is that while religion can be blind obedience to doctrine, and hence constrain moral development (like nationalism can be blind obedience to existing leadership), there is no reason to conclude that this is the essence of religion (or nationalism), anymore than one should conclude that obesity is the essence of eating.

I haven't looked at the links you cited, but from listening to various debates which make reference to the kind of data you mention (e.g., on Beyond Belief 2008, Ted.com, relevant YouTube videos of debates by Harris and others), I notice a misunderstanding of the interpretation of the results. Really, when it comes to this kind of data analysis, it is all about the interpretation!

For instance, Jonathan Haidt, on Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark (link), mentions his analysis of how happy people who believe along theological lines are more happy, etc. Sam Harris (in the panel discussion) tries to argue against these points, but fails to address the fundamental problem with Haidt's retort that "this is the evidence." He seems to suppose, as most will, that evidence is simply objective and homogeneous, and if we have the data quantified then "where it leads to is the truth."

Obviously, there are epistemic problems with this perspective, and that is precisely the problem. From my metaethics (ethical theory) class, two papers we had to read really opened my eyes to an area of study that appeals to me, considering my major is in decision theory, statistics and the social sciences. In particular, they appeal to the fact there is something subjective needing to be weighed into the analysis.

The two papers which demonstrate how we can use subjective (e.g., self-reports) information in an objective, scientific and quantifiable analysis. It must also be appreciated, however, that this analysis is not like, say, studying physics which is studying objective data. This is to say, there is something characteristically different between data which is objective like that of studying gravity, mass or inertia of an object, trajectory, etc, versus that of a consumer purchasing a good, a business deciding if it should expand its trade internationally, etc.

I haven't jumped too far into the philosophy of society or the philosophy of social science, but John Searle's book, "The Construction of Social Reality" presents a really good introduction to some of the ideas regarding these issues, though on his part, it has nothing to do with the two papers referred to above: Amartya Sen, "Positional Objectivity" Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 no. 2 (1993):126-45, and Jennifer Tannoch-Bland, "From Aperspectival Objectivity to Strong Objectivity: The Quest for Moral Objectivity" Hypatia 12 no. 1 (1997):155-78.

There is plenty of literature on these topics of objectivity, I have found in my cursory investigations. What is important is that they try to weigh in crucial subjective information, the role it plays and how it should color our analysis of the facts. I wont go into examples here because it is far off point, but from my studies of Sen's work in welfare economics, it is a central aspect of his decades of work demonstrating the weakness in the attempt to have a purely objective and quantified analysis of wants, desires and utility. In short, he focuses on a different metric, and topics brought up in his "Positional Objectivity" weigh into those kinds of analysis because the perspective from the position the individual is in with regard to the situation under investigation can shed critically important information not manifest by either looking solely at objective information or solely subjective information.

Thus, I was concerned with, in my example, the implication by Haidt's response because I fear he would fail to make that kind of connection, cross exam self-reports to really get at the important information, relevance of the subjective information and develop a meta-theory which explains the way to even do the analysis (e.g., in Sen's work, his "Capabilities Approach" is such a framework for even cross-comparing self-reports of, say, a person's perception of health (a possible welfare parameter) after a famine depending on whether they were a widow or widower [Sen, pg 136]).

So when considering analyzing things of a subjective nature, we really need to do more than just quantify information. Even the best statistics will completely miss the point by not addressing qualitative, or non-quantitative, information that wouldn't be weighed in. Of course, this requires a justification for why that, say, qualitative information is even important (because it could just be "noise"), and that is where that "meta-theory" of the analysis becomes critical.

I will look at this blog again later. These are issues I think that are important in epistemology because it comes down to how we analyze information to claim some kind of knowledge. If things were as simple and discrete as "this is objective" and "this is subjective" and "our objective figures say X," then we might have a nice simple framework of epistemic norms to deal with.

Unfortunately, things are rarely that simple. I think those articles mentioned, and even Searle's book, demonstrate the complexity of the issues regarding social aspects of analysis. Subjective information is important and often overlooked or interpreted without qualification or a justifying meta-theory. Even appeal to statistical correlations or searching for, as you bring up Matt, the "cause of the correlation" will miss much if we don't consider important factors not captured by our quantification that should have been weighed in. That "should" is where our epistemic norms need to step in, and this is far from a simple matter. Maybe if I get motivated I will finally write that epistemic norm piece I've been thinking about since summer! I have had a busy winter, though.

My book is out:

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Atheism

Author:

Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester. Teaching at CSUS since 1996. My main area of research and publication now is atheism and philosophy of religion. I am also interested in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and rational decision theory/critical thinking.

Quotes:

"Science. It works, bitches."

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time. But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money!"George Carlin 1937 - 2008

Many Paths, No God.

I don't go to church, I AM a church, for fuck's sake. I'm MINISTRY. --Al Jourgensen

Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, “It is a matter of faith, and above reason.”- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

If life evolved, then there isn't anything left for God to do.

The universe is not fine-tuned for humanity. Humanity is fine-tuned to the universe. Victor Stenger

Skeptical theists choose to ride the trolley car of skepticism concerning the goods that God would know so as to undercut the evidential argument from evil. But once on that trolley car it may not be easy to prevent that skepticism from also undercutting any reasons they may suppose they have for thinking that God will provide them and the worshipful faithful with life everlasting in his presence. William Rowe

Unless you're one of those Easter-bunny vitalists who believes that personality results from some unquantifiable divine spark, there's really no alternative to the mechanistic view of human nature. Peter Watts

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. E.O. Wilson

Creating humans who could understand the contrast between good and evil without subjecting them to eons of horrible suffering would be an utterly inconsequential matter for an omnipotent being. MM

The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second most important moral principle for all the generations of humanity? It would be so easy to improve upon the 10 Commandments. How about "Try not to deep fry all of your food"? Sam Harris

Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody--not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms--had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think--though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one--that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great

We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true--that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great

If atheism is a religion, then not playing chess is a hobby.

"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything--anything--be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in." Sam Harris, The End of Faith, 36.

"Only a tiny fraction of corpsesfossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water." Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 127.

One cannot take, "believing in X gives me hope, makes me moral, or gives me comfort," to be a reason for believing X. It might make me moral if I believe that I will be shot the moment I do something immoral, but that doesn't make it possible for me to believe it, or to take its effects on me as reasons for thinking it is true. Matt McCormick

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Top Ten Myths about Belief in God

1. Myth: Without God, life has no meaning.

There are 1.2 billion Chinese who have no predominant religion, and 1 billion people in India who are predominantly Hindu. And 65% of Japan's 127 million people claim to be non-believers. It is laughable to suggest that none of these billions of people are leading meaningful lives.

2. Myth: Prayer works.

Numerous studies have now shown that remote, blind, inter-cessionary prayer has no effect whatsoever of the health or well-being of subject's health, psychological states, or longevity. Furthermore, we have no evidence to support the view that people who wish fervently in their heads for things that they want get those things at any higher rate than people who do not.

3. Myth: Atheists are less decent, less moral, and overall worse people than believers.

There are hundreds of millions of non-believers on the planet living normal, decent, moral lives. They love their children, care about others, obey laws, and try to keep from doing harm to others just like everyone else. In fact, in predominately non-believing countries such as in northern Europe, measures of societal health such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, education, homicide, suicide, gender equality, and political coercion are better than they are in believing societies.

4. Myth: Belief in God is compatible with the descriptions, explanations and products of science.

In the past, every supernatural or paranormal explanation of phenomena that humans believed turned out to be mistaken; science has always found a physical explanation that revealed that the supernatural view was a myth. Modern organisms evolved from lower life forms, they weren't created 6,000 years ago in the finished state. Fever is not caused by demon possession. Bad weather is not the wrath of angry gods. Miracle claims have turned out to be mistakes, frauds, or deceptions. So we have every reason to conclude that science will continue to undermine the superstitious worldview of religion.

5. Myth: We have immortal souls that survive the death of the body.

We have mountains of evidence that makes it clear that our consciousness, our beliefs, our desires, our thoughts all depend upon the proper functioning of our brains our nervous systems to exist. So when the brain dies, all of these things that we identify with the soul also cease to exist. Despite the fact that billions of people have lived and died on this planet, we do not have a single credible case of someone's soul, or consciousness, or personality continuing to exist despite the demise of their bodies. Allegations of spirit chandlers, psychics, ghost stories, and communications with the dead have all turned out to be frauds, deceptions, mistakes, and lies.

6. Myth: If there is no God, everything is permitted. Only belief in God makes people moral.

Consider the billions of people in China, India, and Japan above. If this claim was true, none of them would be decent moral people. So Ghandi, the Buddha, and Confucius, to name only a few were not moral people on this view, not to mention these other famous atheists: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, John Stuart Mill, Galileo, George Bernard Shaw, Gloria Steinam, James Madison, John Adams, and so on.

7. Myth: Believing in God is never a root cause of significant evil.

The counter examples of cases where it was someone's belief in God that was the direct justification for their perpetrated horrendous evils on humankind are too numerous to mention.

8. Myth: The existence of God would explain the origins of the universe and humanity.

All of the questions that allegedly plague non-God attempts to explain our origins--why are we here, where are we going, what is the point of it all, why is the universe here--still apply to the faux explanation of God. The suggestion that God created everything does not make it any clearer to us where it all came from, how he created it, why he created it, where it isall going. In fact, it raises even more difficult mysteries: how did God, operating outside the confines of space, time, and natural law "create" or "build" a universe that has physical laws? We have no precedent and maybe no hope of answering or understanding such a possibility. What does it mean to say that some disembodied, spiritual being who knows everything and has all power, "loves" us, or has thoughts, or goals, or plans? How could such a being have any sort of personal relationship with beings like us?

9. Myth: Even if it isn't true, there's no harm in my believing in God anyway.

People's religious views inform their voting, how they raise their children, what they think is moral and immoral, what laws and legislation they pass, who they are friends and enemies with, what companies they invest in, where they donate to charities, who they approve and disapprove of, who they are willing to kill or tolerate, what crimes they are willing to commit, and which wars they are willing to fight. How could any reasonable person think that religious beliefs are insignificant.

10: Myth: There is a God.

Common Criticisms of Atheism (and Why They’re Mistaken)

1. You can’t prove atheism.You can never prove a negative, so atheism requires as much faith as religion.

Atheists are frequently accosted with this accusation, suggesting that in order for non-belief to be reasonable, it must be founded on deductively certain grounds. Many atheists within the deductive atheology tradition have presented just those sorts of arguments, but those arguments are often ignored. But more importantly, the critic has invoked a standard of justification that almost none of our beliefs meet. If we demand that beliefs are not justified unless we have deductive proof, then all of us will have to throw out the vast majority of things we currently believe—oxygen exists, the Earth orbits the Sun, viruses cause disease, the 2008 summer Olympics were in China, and so on. The believer has invoked one set of abnormally stringent standards for the atheist while helping himself to countless beliefs of his own that cannot satisfy those standards. Deductive certainty is not required to draw a reasonable conclusion that a claim is true.

As for requiring faith, is the objection that no matter what, all positions require faith?Would that imply that one is free to just adopt any view they like?Religiousness and non-belief are on the same footing?(they aren’t).If so, then the believer can hardly criticize the non-believer for not believing. Is the objection that one should never believe anything on the basis of faith?Faith is a bad thing?That would be a surprising position for the believer to take, and, ironically, the atheist is in complete agreement.

2. The evidence shows that we should believe.

If in fact there is sufficient evidence to indicate that God exists, then a reasonable person should believe it. Surprisingly, very few people pursue this line as a criticism of atheism. But recently, modern versions of the design and cosmological arguments have been presented by believers that require serious consideration. Many atheists cite a range of reasons why they do not believe that these arguments are successful. If an atheist has reflected carefully on the best evidence presented for God’s existence and finds that evidence insufficient, then it’s implausible to fault them for irrationality, epistemic irresponsibility, or for being obviously mistaken.Given that atheists are so widely criticized, and that religious belief is so common and encouraged uncritically, the chances are good that any given atheist has reflected more carefully about the evidence.

3. You should have faith.

Appeals to faith also should not be construed as having prescriptive force the way appeals to evidence or arguments do. The general view is that when a person grasps that an argument is sound, that imposes an epistemic obligation of sorts on her to accept the conclusion. One person’s faith that God exists does not have this sort of inter-subjective implication. Failing to believe what is clearly supported by the evidence is ordinarily irrational. Failure to have faith that some claim is true is not similarly culpable. At the very least, having faith, where that means believing despite a lack of evidence or despite contrary evidence is highly suspect. Having faith is the questionable practice, not failing to have it.

4. Atheism is bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing.

These accusations have been dealt with countless times. But let’s suppose that they are correct. Would they be reasons to reject the truth of atheism? They might be unpleasant affects, but having negative emotions about a claim doesn’t provide us with any evidence that it is false. Imagine upon hearing news about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki someone steadfastly refused to believe it because it was bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing. Suppose we refused to believe that there is an AIDS epidemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa on the same grounds.

5.Atheism is bad for you.Some studies in recent years have suggested that people who regularly attend church, pray, and participate in religious activities are happier, live longer, have better health, and less depression.

First, these results and the methodologies that produced them have been thoroughly criticized by experts in the field.Second, it would be foolish to conclude that even if these claims about quality of life were true, that somehow shows that there is theism is correct and atheism is mistaken.What would follow, perhaps, is that participating in social events like those in religious practices are good for you, nothing more.There are a number of obvious natural explanations.Third, it is difficult to know the direction of the causal arrow in these cases.Does being religious result in these positive effects, or are people who are happier, healthier, and not depressed more inclined to participate in religions for some other reasons?Fourth, in a number of studies atheistic societies like those in northern Europe scored higher on a wide range of society health measures than religious societies.

Given that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the world’s population, and that religious governments and ideals have held sway globally for thousands of years, believers will certainly lose in a contest over “who has done more harm,” or “which ideology has caused more human suffering.”It has not been atheism because atheists have been widely persecuted, tortured, and killed for centuries nearly to the point of extinction.

Sam Harris has argued that the problem with these regimes has been that they became too much like religions.“Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag, and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”

7.Atheists are harsh, intolerant, and hateful of religion.

Sam Harris has advocated something he calls “conversational intolerance.”For too long, a confusion about religious tolerance has led people to look the other way and say nothing while people with dangerous religious agendas have undermined science, the public good, and the progress of the human race.There is no doubt that people are entitled to read what they choose, write and speak freely, and pursue the religions of their choice.But that entitlement does not guarantee that the rest of us must remain silent or not verbally criticize or object to their ideas and their practices, especially when they affect all of us.Religious beliefs have a direct affect on who a person votes for, what wars they fight, who they elect to the school board, what laws they pass, who they drop bombs on, what research they fund (and don’t), which social programs they fund (and don’t), and a long list of other vital, public matters.Atheists are under no obligation to remain silent about those beliefs and practices that urgently need to be brought into the light and reasonably evaluated.

Real respect for humanity will not be found by indulging your neighbor’s foolishness, or overlooking dangerous mistakes.Real respect is found in disagreement.The most important thing we can do for each other is disagree vigorously and thoughtfully so that we can all get closer to the truth.

8.Science is as much a religious ideology as religion is.

At their cores, religions and science have a profound difference.The essence of religion is sustaining belief in the face of doubts, obeying authority, and conforming to a fixed set of doctrines.By contrast, the most important discovery that humans have ever made is the scientific method.The essence of that method is diametrically opposed to religious ideals:actively seek out disconfirming evidence.The cardinal virtues of the scientific approach are to doubt, analyze, critique, be skeptical, and always be prepared to draw a different conclusion if the evidence demands it.